Category: US

Almost immediately from the moment Barack Obama decided to pull US troops out of Iraq, one disaster after another has overtaken the United States and its historical allies in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
A completely predictable quagmire ensued once Obama decided not to enforce his red line over chemical-weapons use in Syria – what is now the disaster of a generation, the Syrian civil war. Shiite and Sunni constituencies now make war on a regular basis and the peace the former president predicted for Syria has turned into the fear of history repeating itself.

Recently, a US-led coalition bombed a road and small bridge in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zor to stop ISIS fighters retreating from the western part of the country as part of a peace agreement brokered by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant faction that is Iran’s main proxy in the Middle East and which has helped stabilize the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
The peace deal provoked justified anger from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who said, “Transferring terrorists from Qalamoun [an area on the Lebanese-Syrian border] to the Iraqi-Syrian border is worrying and an insult to the Iraqi people.”
This backstabbing by Shiite Iran of its client state Iraq has broad geopolitical implications and could be the reason firebrand Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadrmet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and other top Saudi officials. This transfer of ISIS savages has also infuriated the Iraqi Kurds, since 300 jihadis have returned to the Iraqi border with 300 family members in tow, which allows movement for its fighters to continue their quest for an Islamist caliphate.
But the post-Obama chaos is not limited to the Middle East. North Korea’s missile launch over Japanese territory now have the Japanese contemplating pre-emptive strikes, nuclear first-strike capability and other offensive measures, including the United States’ THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the missile launch “the most serious and grave threat ever” against his country, while Seoul conducted extensive bombing drills near the North Korean border in case of an emergency, an official with the South Korean Defense Ministry told CNN.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying warned that the situation in North Korea had reached a “tipping point approaching a crisis” after the ballistic-missile launch over Japan. North Korea has also used bellicose rhetoric to threaten that its next target is Guam.
The policy of “strategic patience” from Obama didn’t stop North Korea from acquiring and then modernizing further nuclear weapons. Strategic patience only seemed to encourage North Korea’s belligerent behavior toward the world community.
Deferred strength instead of robust deterrence backed by traditional allies along with a growing North Korean economy have led Kim Jong-un to believe he can get away with these actions. Trump can state all he wants that “all options are on the table”, but unless he is willing to have Seoul order a total war against North Korea and possibly China as well, then he only has bad options.
As bad as the above news is, the ramifications of the former US president’s policies have reached a new low with the news coming from Iran about the so-called nuclear deal he negotiated. This could overtake the problems of North Korea and Syria to plunge the world into nuclear chaos in a few short years.
Iran is doing everything possible to dismantle the false narrative that it is a peace-loving regime by thumbing its nose at the US and other signatories to the P5+1 nuclear deal. The people of Iran want peace and engagement with the world, but not their government headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran.
Congruent events highlight Iran’s duplicitous nature. Iranian officials rejected US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s request in August for military sites in Iran to be inspected for nuclear activity. Haley was told: “No one sees military sites without the Ayatollah’s permission.” The flawed nuclear deal supposedly included mechanisms for inspections of nuclear materials at military sites on demand, but that isn’t the case.Obama’s post-presidency legacy will be haunted by his belief that he could trust the Iranians.Israeli intelligence has reportedly discovered that Iran is building weapons factories in Lebanon and Syria. Israeli satellite intelligence unveiled the photos of a “construction site for an Iranian long-range missile production facility in northwestern Syria” to visiting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in late August.
Additionally, US investigators have allegedly caught Iran “shipping Iranian soldiers and proxies to Syria on commercial flights in violation of the nuclear deal”. The new photographic evidence published by a right-wing Washington think-tank purports to prove that Iran is using its flagship commercial carrier Iran Air to ferry militants, jihadis and Hezbollah fighters to Syria, where they are fighting against rebel and Western coalition forces in the region. The Trump administration is now contemplating new sanctions against Iran over this alleged violation.
Obama’s decisions could be seen to be understandable, even rational, if they had been undertaken calmly, peacefully and democratically by the majority of the US Congress when he was in office, but that wasn’t the case.
Pernicious, pseudo-political factors overcame common decency and moral law as Obama assured the world community of the fact-based, ecumenical nature of the Iran deal when it was nothing of the sort. There weren’t extenuating circumstances to make an arrangement with the Iranians necessary; sanctions were crippling them.
Obama is a historical figure but he isn’t exempt from rules or logic. What the falsehoods that this deal unveiled was a president who sent “flashy signals of superior virtue” without ever understanding the cost of leadership. Waving to adoring crowds could not stop the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps acquiring nuclear weapons.The world and Obama himself will rue the day that will soon happen unless something is done to stop Iran from building, acquiring and possibly using nuclear weapons.

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Todd Royal has a master’s in public policy from Pepperdine University. He was a co-author on a Duke University study on the furniture industry and is published by the US Library of Congress on topics such as the fracking industry and the geopolitical implications of expanded US oil and gas production. He is a consultant on geopolitics, energy, and US state and local government.

Donald Trump’s relations with Russia and North Korea have become increasingly strained

Donald Trump launched supersonic B-1B bombers from Guam airbase and warned “America WILL be defended” as North Korea threatened to attack the US naval outpost. In a blatant show of strength two US Air Force B-1B fighter jets took off from the US base alongside bombers from Japan and South Korea. The military drills came before the secretive state announced it is “carefully examining” a plan to target the West Pacific outpost. The rogue state had made the terrifying revelation just hours after US President Donald Trump vowed to meet any threats against America with “fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen”. Later it was announced the trigger happy tyrant was planning on simultaneously firing FOUR Hwasong-12 intermediate range missiles at the US territory of Guam by next week. Thankfully, North Korea backed down from the brink of triggering a nuclear war, announcing it would wait to see what the “foolish yankees” would do first. Donald Trump praised it as a “very wise and well reasoned decision”. Hostility between the two nations has been building for months. Kim Jong-un laughed as he fired North Korea’s first ICBM declaring it was a special “gift for American b******s” on July 4 – America’s Independence Day. It launched the Hwasong-14 – said to be capable of hitting the US – as Donald Trump warned of “severe consequences” for North Korea’s “bad behaviour”. The nuke-obsessed North Korean leader further escalated his war of words by claiming the US is ‘inviting its ultimate doom’ and could be ‘annihilated in a single blow’ amid the proposal of new sanctions.

Reuters

Kim Jong-un has vowed to take on the US in a series of ever-escalating threats

A missile is driven past Kim Jong-un during a military parade in Pyongyang

Who would win the war?

It is impossible to say who would win with any certainty, but the US spends far more on its military than any other nation. The US is the only country in possession of fifth-gen fighter jets – 187 F-22s and an F-35 that is not yet out of the testing phase. Russia is developing one stealth fighter and China is working on four. In terms of submarines the US Navy has 14 ballistic missile submarines with a combined 280 nuclear missiles. They also possess four guided missile submarines with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles each and 54 nuclear attack submarines. Russia has only 60 submarines but they are said to have outstanding stealth capabilities. They are also developing a 100-megaton nuclear torpedo. China has five nuclear attack submarines, 53 diesel attack submarines, and four nuclear ballistic missile submarines to date. But the emerging superpower is developing more.

North Korea say U.S. bombers push tension ‘to the brink of nuclear war’

How to keep Trump’s thumb off the nuclear button By David A. Andelman Updated 11:01 AM E (CNN)Regardless of who may be in the Oval Office, the stakes are too high, the potential outcome too horrific to leave the arsenal of the nuclear football entirely in the hands of any one president — especially President Donald Trump, who, according to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, asked during the campaign, “If we have them, why can’t we use them?” As former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN, “I worry about (his) access to nuclear codes, in a fit of pique, (if he) decides to do something about Kim Jong Un, there is actually very little to stop him.” And concern regarding Trump’s temperament seems to be shared quite widely among the American people. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 68% of those polled thought the President is not level-headed, compared with 29% who thought he is. With Trump’s plan to streamline America’s nuclear arsenal, removing his sole thumb from the nuclear button is all the more urgent. Yes, it’s OK to question Trump’s mental health In short, it’s terrifying if this President does have full and solitary control of the nuclear football. The aluminum briefcase contained in a leather satchel, the entire 45-pound package carried by a rotating selection of military officers, follows the President everywhere. It holds the nuclear targets that he alone can activate using the biscuit, a small card that he carries on his person that bears the actual codes to launch all or part of the entire American strategic arsenal from anywhere on the globe where the commander in chief might find himself. When he’s in the White House, the football is effectively non-operational, as the President orders the nuclear launch codes activated from the Situation Room in the basement where there is always full command authority — at least six staffers on duty 24/7 in five shifts. Still, if the President were to order a strike, while there may be more voices here that could be raised in opposition, his word is still the final authority. The football was a product of the Kennedy administration when, in the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster, the President thought it would be useful to have a means to retaliate quickly and efficiently if the United States were ever attacked by a nuclear power. In those days, that meant the Soviet Union. Today, Vladimir Putin is within range of his own football, the “Cheget,” wherever he travels.At his command and fully accessible through the football, President Trump has more than 900 nuclear warheads with the force equivalent of some 17,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. As Franklin C. Miller, a nuclear specialist who worked for in the Department of Defense for 22 years, told The New York Times last year, “There’s no veto once the President has ordered a strike. The President and only the President has the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.” The solution to having one person with this amount of power, however, is potentially quite near at hand. As Politico reported, White House chief of staff “John Kelly is instituting a system used by previous administrations to limit internal competition — and to make himself the last word on the material that crosses the President’s desk.” Specifically, White House staff secretary Rob Porter “will review all documents that cross the Resolute Desk,” Politico added. Well, why just documents? What about every time the President even looks cross-eyed at the football, or heaven forbid, orders it opened? It is unquestionably a court-martial-worthy offense to refuse the President access to the football. The individuals chosen for this job are impeccably vetted for loyalty and sanity up to a special security level called Yankee White. But what if the military officer who carries it insists on telling John Kelly before allowing the President to access its contents? And the President refuses? Clearly, any sentient individual should tuck it under his arm and flee immediately. What court would ever convict him? Still, there is a solution. Congress should, quite simply, write this procedure into law: The bearer of the White House football, or anyone staffing the Situation Room in the White House, must communicate immediately with Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster or Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at any moment Trump might order the football be opened. There is already a bipartisan stamp on a legislative curb to one potentially volatile international action the President might be inclined to take — lifting, at his own discretion, sanctions on Russia. That measure passed both houses by overwhelming, veto-proof majorities, effectively compelling the President to sign it. A football bill should have equally overwhelming support. A decade ago, Vice President Dick Cheney warned ABC News that the President (at the time George W. Bush) “could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn’t have to check with anybody. He doesn’t have to call the Congress; he doesn’t have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It’s unfortunate, but I think we’re perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have.” What we really need, a decade and a far different administration later, is to take new steps to assure the American people, and the world, that they will not be held hostage by an individual in the grip of some personal or self-generated emotional crisis.

Iran is taking over Syria. The distant enemy is coming closer. The US is out of the picture. Those who put their trust in the new world sheriff, Donald Trump, have to admit he appears to be far more concerned with the American media than the Iranian imperialism. That is who he is. The world’s sheriff is not whoever has more power—the United States has a lot more—but whoever uses the power he has. Netanyahu had to go to Vladimir Putin this week again for another round of talks with the Russian leader during his vacation in Sochi. It’s not clear whether Putin is going to stop the Iranian threat. It is clear, however, that he’s the only one there is any point in talking to. ISIS has been defeated on the ground. Over the last year, its fighters have been pushed out of Mosul in Iraq, and in the coming year, probably, they’ll also be pushed out of Syria’s Raqqa, the caliphate’s capital. The problem is that the alternative for ISIS on the ground—Iran and Hezbollah—is just as bad.The strengthening and spreading of Iran’s influence were made possible, inter alia, because of the nuclear deal. European nations were quick to court the country that got Barack Obama and John Kerry’s stamp of approval. Most of the sanctions were lifted. Europe rushed to renew the massive deals and oil purchases. In the five months that followed the sanctions’ removal, Iranian exports—excluding oil—grew by $19 billion. The oil production soared from an average of 2.5 million barrels a day during the sanctions to close to 4 million barrels a day in recent months. The billions increased accordingly. Many of the heads of Israel’s defense establishment, unlike Netanyahu, determined the nuclear deal was the lesser of evils. Its advantages, they claimed, outweigh its shortcomings. I’m afraid they were wrong. The Iranian threat was twofold: Both the development of nuclear weapons and regional subversion. It is possible there is a temporary waning of the first threat. The second threat, meanwhile, continues growing. Iran is stirring the pot: it has militant affiliates in Yemen; it is fighting in Iraq and turning it into a protected state; Syria is also becoming a protected state; and Lebanon, for a long time now, has been under the control of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah. Between Iran and Israel there is a growing, ever expanding territorial corridor under Iranian control, and the Shiite nation is planning on building a sea port in Syria, perhaps an airport as well. This didn’t happen because of the nuclear agreement, but there is no doubt the nuclear agreement served to bolster Iran and its expansionist aspirations.Obama and Kerry managed to mislead the international community in general—and the American public in particular—by claiming the alternative to the agreement was war. That’s not true. The alternative was continuing and the sanctions and imposing additional, harsher sanctions. Only then, it might have been possible to deal with both threats. Now, it is too late. Most of the time, Netanyahu’s conduct was appropriate. He was among those who pushed for the sanctions on Iran. He spurred the international community into action. But at some point, something went wrong. Netanyahu became a nuisance. Instead of showing a little more flexibility on the Palestinian issue, in order to get more on the Iranian issue, he made himself the American administration’s enemy on both matters. The result was a complete failure. Iran’s nuclear capabilities were not curbed, and Tehran is now turning into a regional power. Chamberlain, said Winston Churchill, was “given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” As time goes on, it becomes all the more apparent Obama has chosen dishonor. Iran is becoming a world power, and Israel might pay with another war.

The New York Timesasserted on Tuesday that with a more advanced nuclear program, Iran “could start enriching uranium up to the level of 20 percent, a step toward building a nuclear weapon.” But was Rouhani making a threat? Or did he accidentally admit that even now Iran is engaged in clandestine nuclear weapons research, in violation of the nuclear deal?One of the weaknesses of the accord is that it doesn’t force Iran to reveal the full extent of its past nuclear research. In December 2015, a month and a half before Implementation Day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report that found that Iran had engaged in nuclear weapons research until at least 2009. The IAEA, which is the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations and is in charge of monitoring Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, couldn’t say for certain whether Iran had stopped seeking nuclear weapons because Iran withheld information. In June 2016, the Obama administration acknowledged that traces of enriched uranium found at the Parchin military installation were likely the result of Iran’s nuclear weapons research. In addition to the unresolved questions raised by the final IAEA report on Iran’s past nuclear work, a former Obama administration official toldThe New York Times in 2013 that “there has never been a time in the past 15 years or so when Iran didn’t have a hidden facility in construction.” There also is a historical reason to suspect that Iran is cheating on the nuclear deal. That is because when it reached an agreement with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in 2004, Iran cheated on its commitments too. In November 2004, Iran and the three European nations, known collectively as the EU3, agreed that Iran would stop enriching uranium in order to avoid being referred to the UN Security Council for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In reporting the 2004 agreement, The New York Timesnoted:

The foreign ministers of the three countries brokered a deal, announced with much fanfare in Tehran 13 months ago. In it, Iran agreed to suspend its production of enriched uranium, which can be used in nuclear energy or nuclear weapons programs, and to submit to more intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities.

After Iran violated the agreement, officials from the three countries acknowledged that the deal had been made too hastily and that the language of the final accord was too vague and open to misinterpretation.

However, within a year, Iran announced its rejection of the Paris agreement, saying that the incentives offered by the Europeans for it not to pursue a military nuclear program were “not acceptable.” Two days later, on August 8, Iran restarted its uranium enrichment program.

In response to Iran’s rejection of the deal, the Europeans said that they would refer Iran’s case to the Security Council. Beginning in July 2006, the Security Council would approve at least six resolutions (1696, 1737, 1747, 1803, 1835, and 1929) sanctioning Iran for its illicit nuclear program as it repeatedly refused to halt enriching uranium. (The nuclear deal removed the nuclear-related sanctions and allowed Iran to maintain its enrichment program.)

If Iran was concerned about the consequences of defying the Europeans, their lead nuclear negotiator for the Paris agreement didn’t show it.

Hassan Rouhani, now president of Iran, told a closed meeting of clerics in March 2006 that the negotiations allowed Iran to advance their nuclear program.

“From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, ‘The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.’ The Europeans used to respond, ‘We trust them’,” The Telegraphreported.

“When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Teheran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan,” Rouhani added.

“The dilemma was if we offered a complete picture, the picture itself could lead us to the UN Security Council,” he said, speaking of the predicament Iran was facing in September 2003, when the IAEA demanded a full accounting of its nuclear activities. “And not providing a complete picture would also be a violation of the resolution and we could have been referred to the Security Council for not implementing the resolution.”

Rouhani made similar boasts in 2013 when he was running for his first term as president. During a televised debate, when the moderator accused Rouhani of suspending Iran’s nuclear program for negotiations, the candidate pushed back:

Quite the contrary, Rouhani countered, detailing the completion of various phases of work at Isfahan under his watch in 2004 and 2005. He went on to state proudly that the Iranian heavy water reactor at Arak was also developed under his watch, in 2004. “Do you know when we developed yellowcake? Winter 2004,” Rouhani went on. “Do you know when the number of centrifuges reached 3,000? Winter 2004.” Incredulous at the notion that Iran had bowed to international pressure and halted nuclear activities in that period, Rouhani asked the interviewer, “We halted the nuclear program? We were the ones to complete it! We completed the technology.”

We can sense fear in statements made by Iranian officials and most recently President Hassan Rouhani who warned against the consequences of the big scheme’s collapse – the reconciliation agreement with the West based on the nuclear deal signed during the term of former US President Barack Obama.

The Congress shocked the Iranian government when it reinstated a number of economic sanctions on Iran, and US President Donald Trump insisted on his stance that the nuclear agreement serves Iran more than the US, threatening to abolish it.

Countries of the European Union (EU) are keen to preserve the agreement, which they believe it ushered in a new phase with the Iranian regime. Since signing it, they rushed to seal huge trade deals with Tehran, a move that was previously not possible because the US government would have put any European company that dealt with Iran on the blacklist.

Tehran used the second option as a weapon to blackmail the West: Obama’s administration struck with it a deal that only aims at halting its nuclear program, allowing it to enjoy its powers in several areas, including those that the US considers as interest zones such as the Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The new Iranian threats against the US economic sanctions must be taken seriously because they trigger Iran’s way of imposing what it wants via violence and chaosAbdulrahman al-Rashed

Significant progress

Yet, Iran’s commitment to ceasing the nuclear project is a significant progress that makes Iran worthy of the removal of economic and commercial sanctions. But Obama’s administration went so far in its concessions and allowed Tehran to wage wars, for the first time and in a direct manner, even in states not lying on its border such as Syria and Yemen.

The nuclear agreement is partially responsible for the region’s chaos. There are more than 50,000 extremists fighting in Syria – directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and brought in from various countries at the time when the international community was endeavoring to get rid of extremist groups such as ISIS.

Disrupting the project

The deal might succeed in disrupting the nuclear project for another decade but it has fueled a more dangerous war in the Middle East and posed an unprecedented level of threat to regimes since the revolution in Iran in 1979. It also reinforced extremists in Tehran.

The new Iranian threats against the US economic sanctions must be taken seriously because they trigger Iran’s way of imposing what it wants via violence and chaos. But the US relapse in Syria represents a huge tactical mistake because Syria is where Iran can be besieged and obliged to cooperate regionally and internationally.

This article was first published in Asharq Al-Awsat.______________________________Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the former General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today. He tweets @aalrashed.